


Farewells

by Darkhorse



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Funerals, Grief/Mourning, Grieving Javert, M/M, Tissues may be required
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-15
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-06 18:46:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1868421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkhorse/pseuds/Darkhorse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sequel of sorts to Fading Away by theoreticallychaotic (suggest you read that first), dealing with what must come after death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Farewells

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theoreticallychaotic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoreticallychaotic/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Fading Away](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1011287) by [theoreticallychaotic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoreticallychaotic/pseuds/theoreticallychaotic). 



> Not sure where this came from, but I like it. theoreticallychaotic, I hope you don't mind me borrowing Maxime for this fic.

The funeral party was small. Small not to the point of politness but to the point that it consisted of three guards, a horse and cart, and  
the coffin itself, which sat in the cart. 

Javert walked at the rear, his eyes seeing every jolt and jerk the coffin made as the cart rolled across the dusty ground. His vision was clear, painfully sharp in the morning light, unable to see anything but the wooden box he followed to the graveyard. The box which held the body of the man he had loved  
The man I still love.

But, sight aside, all his other instincts seemed to be muted. The guffawing bird he'd heard for months was absent from his ears, what breakfast he'd forced down his throat had tasted of dust and nothing, choking him rather than providing nourishment. How he didn't trip and fall, he was uncertain, his feet seemed permanently on the edge of stumbling with every step he took. If he did fall, he realised he wouldn't care. The ground, hard and stony, couldn't hurt him anymore than the hole in his chest did. But then again, to fall would ruin the strength of this scene, would disgrace Jean. For that reason, that reason alone, he made himself stay upright, walking two steps behind as was a Cheif mourner's right.

The route the cortege took meant passing the mine entrance and a prison, the burial ground being on the opposite side of the stone buildings to the guards cabins. There was double logic behind this. One, that more prisoners would die than guards so it made sense for it to be relatively closer to the prison blocks. Two, it created a route of respect for a fallen guard. All of this was what Javert knew abstractly, as he followed he could not decide if the distance prolonged an agony, or mercifully delayed a fact he did not want to face. No flanking rows of mourners and baton salute for this dead man. Prisoners were buried with sorrow only on the part of their chainmates, and that was rare enough in itself. Buried with enough care so as not to cause trouble and enough solemnity to appease catholic souls, but no more than that. Jean deserved more... So much more. But no one, not even Maxime saw, had seen, Jean as he had. The Faverolles tree pruner hadn't a bad bone in his body, in reality. But all they'd seen was a brute, a brute held by chains and their barons from hurting them.

Chains. As if the very memory of the manacles summoned them he heard the distinctive clanking. Slowly he made his muscles lift his head upright. It was the morning shift, having just crossed the track on the way to the pit mouth. That had been Jean's shift, until he was pulled above ground. He skimmed them with a gaze, half seeing faces Jean had talked about in their long nights together.

Almost as one the group of convicts doffed their caps, some bowing heads as the cart creaked past them. Javert mustered the energy for a stilted nod of recognition to their action, half hearing a shocked exclamation from one of the cart guards. But his eyes fell back to the wooden casket on the cart, and his mind rolled forwards to the hole which awaited it at the end of the walk. His knees wanted to buckle as they confronted that fact but somehow, somehow he kept going. 

The funeral was short, perfunctory to the extreme. Coffin lowered, prayers said, coffin covered, earth patted. The cart rolled away with a bitter rapidity, the rattles seeming almost jolly as it skittered over the ground. Javert stood at the foot of the grave, as was his place. Staring down he found his toes perfectly touching the mound of dug soil. Odd, how such a little thing could find its way to his mind now, when it didn't matter. But then nothing mattered anymore.  
  
"Jean..." His throat tightened, and whatever should have come next fell away unspoken.  
  
He gasped for air, the sharp sound all to close to that which he had both loathed and worshipped for this little while.  
  
"Why? Why?" He wanted to howl it, but all he could manage was a dry whisper, even as his heart shattered, disintegrated. Jean was gone, gone where he could not follow. Flown home safe to that eternal nest.  
  
"too-ral-li, oo-ral-li, addity, singing too-ral-li, oo-ral-li, ay, singing too-ral-li, oo-ral-li, addity" that nonsense refrain which Jean had been singing, on that ship. So random, so apparently senseless, yet it fell from his lips when all the traditional prayers would not. He sang, heedless of his voice cracking and screeching on the last note, grateful for the release of the pain.

\----------------

"He's not still out there is he?" The guard looked out the window into the twilight, then glanced at his cabin mate.  
Maxime sighed "Well he's not in his cabin, I just checked, and he was excused the duty roster." He tirned and shrugged his coat back on "I'll go and get him, he can have my bunk for tonight."  
The other guard nodded, turning his eyes back to the pack of cards he was shuffling.

The night was inclined to fall fast in this country, and the heat went from the ground nearly as fast. Maxime broke into a jog trot to cross the ground, huddling into his coat to avoid the cold. Given the situation, he would rather had left Javert out here, the man had a right to mourn in peace, but he feared finding another dead man in the morning, dead of exposure. He shook his head. This was a cruel, cruel world that they had been brought to. Some part of him wished he had stayed in France, but there was better position for advancement here, even if everything else was lacking. Here, he might make a high adjutant one day, in Toulon he'd only stay as an ordinary guard. He didn't know why Javert had come. There were rumors about his parentage, but he didn't often listen to rumors.

  
When he reached the graveyard, he couldn't see Javert. Only a long moment squinting into the gloom allowed him to discern the upright darker patch which could only be the other guard. He approached slowly, clearing his throat to announce his presence. Javert didn't react, staring down at the cross and the grave, without even a twitch. Maxime hastened to his side.  
  
"Javert, come inside before you freeze to death."  
  
Nothing. He slipped one arm around the taller man, gently trying to guide him away.  
  
Javert resisted, as if his feet had grown roots, his eyes never leaving the cross "No, I belong here."  
  
"You've done all you can, come to sleep now."  
  
Javert staggered suddenly, and Maxime found he had to steady him. The tall man shook his head frantically "No... No, I can't go back there."  
  
He knew what 'there' meant, and he didn't blame Javert one bit "You don't have to, you're sharing with Allard and myself, we've made you up a bed."  
  
Javert turned to face him, and Maxime fought not to startle. He'd seen Javert's eyes full of righteousness, cold with anger, once or twice full of mirth. but never had he seen the grey eyes so dead, so blank and empty. It wasn't a person he would be leading back to the cabin, it was only a mere flesh and bone shell, wearing Javert's clothes. There was nothing of Javert left. The worst of it was that he could offer no comfort, perhaps the only comfort which could be offered now to this man was the comfort of death.  


There was no sign of Javert at Sunday Mass, three days later, and a handful of concerned faces to match it. Maxime found himself glancing back at the door rather than paying attention, waiting for the tall figure to appear. Waiting. Waiting. His heart grew cold, remembering the look on javert's face when he'd lead him from the grave, of his own thoughts. Surely he wouldn't...  
 _No, he wouldn't. If only because suicide would damn him from ever seeing Jean again __  
That and that alone, might keep the other man from that most desperate of courses. But it didn't explain his absence at a compulsory service, when he'd been on duty the day before. His eyes wandered to Chenildeu, towards the front of the convicts, and carefully watched. Yesterday the idiot had snarled another lewd suggestion about Jean. It hadn't been Javert who reacted, but the men the convict was chained to. They'd turned on the trouble maker, fists and shackles flying. The guards who had been on duty, who he believed to have another 'special relationship', had simply let them, driving them back after a few moments. Everyone believed it was the brute's just deserts, and as far as he knew, no-one had told Gisquet. The thought made him smile as he bowed his head in prayer._

Maxime followed Gisquet as his superior left the church, lengthening his stride to catch up "Sir?"  
  
Gisquet turned "You wish to know where Javert is?"  
  
He nodded.  
  
Gisquet's eyes wandered to the horizen "He left this morning, knocked on my door with a knapsack on his back and asked for his pay. He said he couldn't bear to stay a day longer, needed to find a new place. I asked him to stay for church at least, but the look in his eyes... I might have stabbed him in the chest and caused less pain I think. I had to let him go. It's a pity, he was a good man... They both were."  
  
Maxime nodded "They were indeed, God grant them peace, in their own ways."  



End file.
